Living with Fear in Fukushima

Residents of Fukushima Prefecture wonder if it’s safe to resume their lives

Fukushima Pride: During the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi power station, all towns within a 30 kilometer radius of the plant were evacuated. Some of those towns have since been reinhabited; some remain off-limits. Beyond the evacuation zone, residents of Fukushima Prefecture struggle to get on with their lives amid fears of radiation. Are their homes safe to live in? Is the food safe to eat? Will their whole prefecture, which is as large as the state of Connecticut, be stigmatized as a fallout zone? At a recent festival held to draw tourists back to Fukushima, this woman showed her hometown pride.

Photo: Eliza Strickland

By the Numbers: The Japanese government has installed radiation monitors throughout much of Fukushima Prefecture to keep residents informed of current radiation levels. This monitor’s display reads 0.859 microsieverts per hour, which equals 7.5 millisieverts per year. The government has declared that towns can be reoccupied if the radiation dose is below 20 mSv per year, which is the typical safety threshold for nuclear workers.

Photo: Eliza Strickland

Citizen Scientists: Many Fukushima residents don’t trust the government’s reports of radiation levels because official communications during the crisis were confusing, irregular, and sometimes inaccurate. Citizen science groups have therefore started up to conduct their own radiation monitoring. Here, Azby Brown [left] and Joe Moross, volunteers with a group called Safecast, prepare for a drive into the evacuation zone. Their radiation detectors are strapped to their car, and the GPS-tagged data will be uploaded to online maps.

Photo: Eliza Strickland

A Place to Play?: The government has prioritized the decontamination of Fukushima’s schools, and several centimeters of topsoil were removed from this school playground. The Safecast volunteers checked the government’s post-cleanup radiation report with their own equipment. They found that radiation levels were low in the playground, but they increased significantly in the easily accessible woods just beyond.

Photo: Eliza Strickland

Taking Out the Trash: Many roadside areas in the evacuation zone have been decontaminated, but it’s impossible to scrape the top layer of soil from all of Fukushima’s hills. Even the limited cleanup poses big storage problems. Bags of contaminated dirt are a common sight along the roads of Fukushima, as the government is still trying to decide on a long-term storage solution.

Photo: Eliza Strickland

Danger Inside: Many Fukushima residents want to be checked for internal contamination, which would indicate whether they’ve inhaled or ingested radioactive materials. Masaharu Tsubokura, a physician from the University of Tokyo, comes to Fukushima every week to conduct full-body scans. He hasn’t found anyone with dangerous levels of radiation, and only a few with detectable levels. Interviews with those few revealed that they’d been foraging for food in the hills; typically they’d eaten wild mushrooms or lake fish.

Photo: Eliza Strickland

Cold Welcome: The town of Okuma lies just three kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi plant. It was a prosperous town of 11 500 people before the accident, and its residents devoted themselves to farming, fishing, and the nuclear industry. Now it’s far too radioactive for residents to return. It’s likely to be off-limits for decades.

Photo: Eliza Strickland

Protective Gear: Spending an hour inside Okuma requires donning head-to-foot protective gear, as well as a dosimeter to keep track of radiation levels. In a recent survey of former Okuma residents, only 11 percent said they hoped to return to their town and live in their homes again.

Photo: Eliza Strickland

Off-Limits: Entry to Okuma is strictly controlled. Former residents have been allowed to return only for brief trips to gather cherished belongings or clean their ancestors’ graves.

Photo: Eliza Strickland

The Hot Zone: During a drive down an Okuma street, a Safecast radiation detector registered 16 microsieverts per hour. That means a resident living there year-round would receive an annual dose of 140 millisieverts, which is seven times more than the government’s safety threshold.

Photo: Eliza Strickland

A New Life: Many evacuees are trying to establish themselves in new homes and have been forced to find new livelihoods. This shop in Fukushima City employs evacuees and sells the specialty foods and crafts they make.

Photo: Eliza Strickland

Town-in-Exile: An empty school in Fukushima Prefecture has been converted into a town hall for the mayor of Okuma and his staff. The hallways are decorated with strings of paper cranes. A Japanese story holds that folding 1000 paper cranes conveys a wish or good luck; thus many well-wishers have sent collections to the town of Okuma.

Photo: Eliza Strickland

Tree by Tree: This pear farm in Fukushima Prefecture lies well outside the evacuation zone, but the farmer still couldn’t sell her produce after the accident. She cooperated with the government on a decontamination project: Workers removed the topsoil, while the farmer and her family scraped the outer layer of bark off each tree to remove radioactive particles.

Photo: Eliza Strickland

Into the Pit: All the contaminated topsoil from the pear farm has been bagged up and transferred to a pit at the edge of the farmer’s property. The government has asked to store the waste there for three years, after which it will supposedly be brought to a long-term storage site.

Photo: Eliza Strickland

Not Leaving: Rancher Tokuei Hosokawa’s land is within the evacuation zone, but he has defied the government’s orders to leave. Hosokawa says he must stay to take care of his horses. Here, he demonstrates how he’s taught a colt to dance.